(credit: Global Panorama / flickr)

A Google product manager has filed a lawsuit (PDF) against his employer, saying that the company’s confidentiality requirements violate California labor laws.

The plaintiff has filed his case anonymously, saying he must sue as a “John Doe” because Google Director of Global Investigations Brian Katz “falsely informed approximately 65,000 Googlers that Plaintiff was terminated for ‘leaking’ certain information to the press.” Doe says he didn’t leak and Katz knew he didn’t, but he was used as a “very public scapegoat.”

The complaint, first reported by The Information, is scant on details about what happened between Katz and Doe, while long on criticism of Google’s policies. It says Google’s threats to discharge employees “who exercise their constitutional rights by providing information to the press or otherwise exercising their freedom of speech” violates the labor code as well.